Myths and Legends of Ancient Egypt

Page: 112

This was done: his horses were fed and tied up, the baggage was
searched, and the magic cane found.

The Stratagem

Hearing this, the Prince of Joppa expressed his eager wish to behold
the magic cane. Thoutii went and fetched it; then suddenly seizing the
Prince by his clothes, he said, "Behold here King Thothmes' magic cane,"
and with that he raised his hand and struck the Prince on the forehead
so that the latter fell down unconscious before him. Then he put him
into the big leather sack he had with him and clapped the handcuffs on
his wrists and the irons on his feet. The face of the dead man being
invisible, Thoutii's stratagem was to pass off the corpse as his own.
He had the two hundred soldiers put into an equal number of the four
hundred jars he had brought with him and filled the remainder with the
ropes and wooden shackles; then he sealed them, corded them, and gave
them to as many strong soldiers, saying, "Go quickly and tell the Prince
of Joppa's equerry that I am slain. Let him go and tell his mistress,
the Princess of Joppa, that Thoutii is conquered, that she may open the
city gates[Pg 251] to receive the dead body of the vanquished and the jars of
booty that have been taken from him." The equerry received this message
and ran to tell the joyful news to his mistress. The gates of the town
were opened, and Thoutii's men carried the jars containing the other
soldiers into the town. Then they released their companions, and the
Egyptian force fell upon the inhabitants of the city and took them and
bound them.

After he had rested Thoutii sent a message to Pharaoh saying, "I have
killed the Prince of Joppa and all the people of Joppa are prisoners.
Let them be sent for and brought to Egypt, that your house may be filled
with male and female slaves who will be yours for ever. Let Amen-Ra, thy
father, the god of gods, be glorified."

[1] Vansleb at the end of the seventeenth century perhaps heard
it spoken.

[2] The Rosetta Stone is written in three scripts,
hieroglyphic, Demotic, and Greek.

[3] Properly speaking, it should be written from right to left
horizontally. Only for decorative purposes is it inscribed from right to
left or in columns.

To the peoples of antiquity Egypt appeared as the very mother of
magic. In the mysterious Nile country they found a magical system much
more highly developed than any within their native knowledge, and
the cult of the dead, with which Egyptian religion was so strongly
identified, appeared to the foreigner to savour of magical practice. If
the materials of the magical papyri be omitted, the accounts which we
possess of Egyptian magic are almost wholly foreign, so that it is wiser
to derive our data concerning it from the original native sources if we
desire to arrive at a proper understanding of Egyptian sorcery.